


12 Months

by readyplayertwo



Series: Lies they tell [3]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Aged-Up Yuri Plisetsky, Angst, Anorexia, Bulimia, EDNOS, Eating Disorders, Future Fic, I'm gonna throw a TW in the tags just in case ya didn't get it already tbqh, M/M, Multi, Recovery, Sickfic, Time Skips, Yuri's cat is there, i guess you could say that???
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-09-20 06:34:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9479546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readyplayertwo/pseuds/readyplayertwo
Summary: The ice is cold, but Yuri Plisetsky is colder.-[Multi-chapter sequel to 108, Notice]





	1. январь | JANUARY

The ice is cold, but Yuri Plisetsky is colder. He warms himself with vodka shots and a heated blanket his grandfather buys him. Days are filled with practice, and that’s something Yuri can stand. He pushes and pushes until he could break – but he doesn’t. Yakov applauds his efforts.

Nights are long and dark in the Russian winter. Yuri’s apartment feels empty when he gets home. Masha is sprawled out on the couch, watching him with sharp eyes. Yuri busies himself petting her and ignores the strange twist in his stomach.

It’s too cold. He tries to turn up the heat, but it’s already too high, and Yuri realizes he can’t let his heating bill go higher. For a moment, he sees the shaking of his wrists, the shudder of his body, and he wonders if this is the end. It isn’t. He has a long way to go.

He isn’t even good enough yet. Slowly, he pads over to his dresser and pulls out a few pairs of socks, rolling them on one at a time. Even then, he can still feel the numbness of his toes. He adds a jacket, too, and notices with a sudden burst of warmth that it’s Otabek’s.

Yuri misses him. They haven’t spoken in at least a month – not on FaceTime, at least. From time to time, Yuri still sends him cat memes, and Otabek responds in kind, but it’s not the same. Otabek knows – of this, Yuri’s certain – and he hasn’t said anything.

(A small voice inside Yuri says it’s because Otabek agrees: he’s not perfect yet.)

Later that night, Yuri takes his aching body into the kitchen and stares at the contents of his near-empty fridge for a long time. Then, he grabs a few slices of turkey and a protein bar and a bottled water and forces himself in next to Masha on the couch.

When Yuri wakes up in the morning, he is still cold. He sweeps the half-eaten protein bar off the table and into the trash.

On his lunch break, Yuri disappears into the locker room, leaving the rest of the team to argue over where to get lunch. Mila’s particularly loud and irritating today, so he doesn’t bother to explain away his absence. Yuri shuts himself into one of the toilet stalls and rests his heavy body against one of the walls. He wonders if he’ll ever have the energy to move again.

Yuri’s phone buzzes, and he makes the effort to pull it out of his pocket. The only thing stopping him from chucking it into the toilet and giving up on social media is Otabek’s name scrawled across the screen. 

I miss you, Yura.

(I miss you too, Yuri thinks. He begins typing his response, but he can’t bring himself to send it. The words get stuck in the limbo of the phone screen, and he never manages to tell Otabek that he misses him too.)


	2. February | февраль

Yuri oversleeps. He wakes up at nine, alarm blaring in his ear, not sure how he missed it. If it's that late, Yakov’s been waiting for him at least a few hours. He rolls over to get up, but his body doesn’t seem quite aligned with his mind, and he flops back onto the mess of pillows.

After a few minutes, he works up the energy to grab his phone. He scrolls through his Instagram feed. Stupid Viktor and Makkachin. Pork Cutlet Bowl’s brave enough to show his face in one or two of his posts. The only photo Yuri likes is a #tbt from Viktor: a crown of blue roses around his head, a gold medal against his neck. If Yuri looks closely, he can see Viktor’s collarbones.

Trudging to the kitchen, Yuri grabs an energy drink and dumps out what is probably the right amount of food for Masha. She meows at him and buries her nose in her food.

Yuri’s phone buzzes – it’s a post notification from Otabek’s Instagram. Yuri unlocks his phone warily; he’s been pointedly ignoring Otabek’s messages since last month. He doesn’t talk to anyone these days, save for his weekly calls with his grandfather. Even his interactions with Mila are lackluster. She’s stopped trying to provoke him; he never reacts anymore. He doesn’t have the energy to.

Otabek’s posted a picture of them from Yuri’s eighteenth birthday party. Yuri has one of those stupid tinsel crowns that says “BDAY BOY” (Viktor’s idea), and he should look angry, but he doesn’t. He’s beaming. Otabek’s arm is wrapped around his waist.

Yuri remembers telling Otabek to look at the camera, but instead, Otabek kept looking at him. It’s one of the last times Yuri remembers feeling warm. Shortly after the photo was taken, he hit his last growth spurt, and then he spiraled.

The caption on the photo simply says: Memories.

It’s Valentine’s Day, Yuri realizes. He ought to post something, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t even like the photo. But before he heads out the door, he unlocks his phone one last time and sends a message.

YURI: hi.

OTABEK: Hi

He doesn’t bother to respond.

Yakov yells at him for being late, and Yuri welcomes the criticism. Yakov’s the only one who seems to see how worthless he is. Yuri’s tired of being babied, of being treated like a kid. He notices Mila eyeing him from the other side of the rink, and he throws himself into a quad sal, but he doesn’t do it quite right, and he lands with a thud on his back.

Even Yakov can’t stand to see him fail much more, and so he sends Yuri home early with strict orders to rest. Yuri halfheartedly flips him off, but somehow, he’s relieved. He grabs his phone and turns it over, expecting to see it blown up with notifications from Otabek.

There aren't any.

Yuri doesn’t know why he was expecting anything else. He goes home and gets in bed, but he can’t get comfortable; his hipbones dig into the mattress all wrong.


	3. March | Март

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um hi sorry for taking so long to update  
> obviously this is a pretty personal story lmao so  
> when i am struggling w stuff  
> it's hard to write  
> that's all  
> I GOT A TUMBLR PLS FOLLOW ME  
> i will follow you back tbh  
> readyplayer--two.tumblr.com

For Yuri’s birthday, Mila and Georgi go in together on a cake. Pork Cutlet Bowl and Viktor show up while Yuri’s stretching in the locker room. Viktor grabs Yuri and twirls him in a circle like he used to when they were kids.

“Wow!” he says. Yuri’s not sure why. Viktor’s hair brushes against Yuri’s cheek; he’s growing it out again – probably at Pork Cutlet Bowl’s request. “So where’s the cake?”

Yuri shrugs. “Outside. Yakov let those idiots bring it on the rink.”

At the promise of free cake – which, Yuri would later find out, was decorated like some kind of leopard-print atrocity – Viktor dashes out of the locker room, leaving Yuri alone with the other Yuuri.

It keeps getting harder and harder to think of the Japanese man as the other Yuuri. After all, he’s the three-time gold medalist, the apple of Viktor’s eye, the pride of his country.

Maybe Yuri Plisetsky is the other Yuri now.

-

He spends the day skating on the outside of the rink, staying far away from the smell of cake. Viktor licks a dab of frosting off Yuuri’s cheek and grins. Yuuri goes red. From the side of the rink, Makkachin barks.

It’s not long until Chris and Phichit get there. Chris was Viktor’s best man, and Phichit was Yuuri’s, and watching the four of them, Yuri wonders why he even bothered to come to his own party. Off on the other side of the rink, Georgi’s on the phone texting – his new girlfriend’s name is Amelié, Yuri remembers – and Mila’s trying to slap it out of his hand.

Phichit gets control of the aux cord and starts playing some loud music Yuri vaguely recognizes from his youth. He can feel the thud of the bass in his chest, and his heart starts racing. His stomach turns. Before anyone notices, Yuri skates off the ice and makes his way into the bathroom.

In the movies, splashing water on your face makes you feel better. Yuri discovers this is a distinctly cinematic lie – he only feels stupid.

“Hey,” a voice says. Yuri turns around, hair whipping in his face, and sees Otabek leaning up against one of the tiled walls.

“Hi,” Yuri replies weakly. “I – I didn’t know you were coming.” It’s the only honest thing he can say.

Otabek blanches at that – he looks hurt. But he says nothing. It’s what they’re good at, what they’ve always been good at. Instead, he moves up closer to Yuri and slowly pulls Yuri’s hair back into a ponytail.

“Here. Your hair’s in your face.” He ties it back with a hair tie from his wrist. Yuri feels the heat of Otabek’s body against his back and arches into it almost instinctively.

Otabek catches him by the shoulder. His fingers trace a line along Yuri’s collarbone and make their way to the xylophone of ribs on his chest. 

When Otabek’s face darkens, Yuri thinks: It’s not enough. But he doesn’t move. They stay there, wrapped around one another, until the motion sensor goes off and the lights turn out.


	4. APRIL | апрель

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guess what sorry this chapter is too fricking short  
> working on life

He knows it can’t go on like this forever. He’s five-ten and 108 lbs. 

When he looks in the mirror, he knows it’s not enough.

No one seems to know what will break first. They don’t make bets on him like they do on Georgi and his girlfriends – too morbid – but they stare at him and whisper when he walks by. Yuri’s only a wisp, a breath of wind blowing in from the cold. He wants his hair to grow longer, but it doesn’t make much progress.

Otabek sends him a Snapchat late in April. They’ve exchanged the usual: memes, cat photos, rude comments. But this one’s different.

Yuri has eight seconds – just eight seconds – to react when he sees Otabek’s bare chest. He traces the lines of the light on his abdomen until his gaze reaches the black boxers he’s only seen once or twice before.

Hands shaking, Yuri pulls off his own shirt and tries to contort his body in the same way. It looks wrong, though – hair too short, too frizzy; legs too fat; love handles. He snaps the photo anyways and looks at it on his phone.

For an instant, he thinks he sees it, sees the way other people see him. He’s a skeleton, a walking dead man.

Delete.

He takes a photo of his feet in his trainers instead, drawing little whiskers on them like cats. The caption says: wow. He hopes it’s enough.

When he fractures his wrist the next day doing a jump, he isn’t even surprised. His mind was broken long before his body.


	5. MAY | май

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sorry i have been super inactive lmao  
> im doing gr8  
> i prob should start a less depressing fic  
> like a cute romance AU  
> ugh

There are two days left in May when Yakov finally decides enough is enough. Yuri’s been moping around the rink, dragging his feet around, eyes fixed on the ice like if he stares enough, he’ll be skating again. It should be easier for him to stop eating now, he thinks, now that he doesn’t need energy for anything but sitting…waiting…wasting time.

But it’s boring – oh, god, it’s suffocating. Yuri’s tiny apartment gets dirty too fast, and the strands of lights he lovingly strung up a few years back are like bars on a cell. The first day off, Yuri eats and eats because it’s better to feel full than feel nothing. It hurts, his stomach, and that’s good – at least he can still hurt.

It’s not long before he’s knelt over the toilet with his spare toothbrush in his hand. Masha paws at his ankles.

And finally, Yakov calls.

Yuri flushes the vomit and answers the phone. His voice is still hoarse; he tries not to let it sound too obvious.

“Hello?”

-

A day later, Yuri is sitting on a plane, his bony elbow digging into the armrest. He doesn’t have the energy to resist. But he also knows this is a bad idea – the worst, in fact. Arguing with Yakov, always his strong suit, has become difficult.

“Please fasten your seatbelts,” a stewardess says. Her red lipstick looks like a smear of blood on her face. She smiles at Yuri. “Welcome aboard. Thank you for flying with us today. Our flight time to Almaty should be about four hours, thirty minutes.”


	6. JUNE | июнь

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry i haven't posted in ages folks  
> i'm tryna do school over here too and this season is BUSY

June

When Yuri gets off the plane, it is just after midnight. June, he thinks. He’s surprised he’s made it this long.

No one is waiting to pick him up at the airport, and for a moment, Yuri considers getting back on the plane, turning around, going home. Yakov will be mad, but at least Masha’ll be happy. He can’t trust Georgi with his cat; last time he looked after her, Masha wouldn’t even let Yuri pet her for weeks.

It’s just as well, Yuri thinks. He really does turn around, eyes fixed on the counter, mentally counting the wad of money in his pocket, when he feels arms wrap around him; he’s lifted up into the air.

“Yura,” Otabek whispers. He doesn’t say anything else. Especially not: You look good. Because Yuri doesn’t; he’s still not enough. The weight he gained back in May must be obvious. He’s in no shape to compete, let alone see Otabek.

Otabek does not keep him suspended like that. He puts Yuri down on the floor (he’s too heavy to carry for long, of course – what else could it be?) and guides him through the airport and out to his motorcycle. It purrs to life, and Yuri feels Otabek staring at him as he straps the helmet on.

Later that night, at Otabek’s apartment, he is sprawled on the bed, considering whether or not it’d be bad to hunt down whoever’s playing Overwatch on his team and tell them to stay on the fucking payload. Otabek picked up some takeout – greasy Chinese food – and now that Yuri’s alone with it, he feels the smell wafting towards him.

Otabek has definitely noticed Yuri isn’t eating it – Yuri can tell by the glances – but he thinks Otabek’s probably glad. Yuri’s too fat to be eating shit like that. How do you even measure a portion? How much oil did they grease the noodles up with?

Yuri loses the game and creeps over to the door to listen. Otabek is on the phone with someone – Yuuri, maybe, since he’s speaking English.

“Yes.” A pause. “He’s playing games. Chinese food.” Otabek pauses and looks over at the door. Yuri edges away from the crack in the door and keeps listening. “No, worse,” Otabek says. Yuri doesn’t have to hear the question to know what Yuuri asked: How does he look?

And he looks fucking terrible. Disgusting. Covered in fat, and even in the places he almost likes, they still never look right in photos. Pictures lie to him all the time, and he never knows what to think. Sometimes his ribcage is a xylophone; sometimes it’s invisible under all the fat.

Yuri dashes over to the window and yanks it open, then dumps a bit of the Chinese food out. He shuts it again and replaces the box on the bed.

After a few minutes, Otabek comes back in. He looks at Yuri, then the box on the bed, and sees the dent in the enormous pile of noodles. Nodding, he sits down on the floor. “Is it my turn?”

“You can go,” Yuri says. “Those bastards are driving me crazy. I have to pee anyways.”

Otabek’s gaze follows him all the way out of the room and into the bathroom. Yuri turns on the faucet until the water runs scalding hot, sticking his hands under the faucet. In Otabek’s mirror, his face looks run-down and tired. The dark circles under his eyes are huge. His collarbone sticks out, and his ribcage really does look like a xylophone.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Mostly an announcement about this fic  
I always feel bad when I see an author not finishing a fic and don't know why so I mean  
Obviously this is a very personal fic  
and I don't feel like writing it is conducive to my own recovery?  
so I'm abandoning it  
(for which I apologize)  
but if you have any other fic ideas you want to send my way,   
I'm kind of thinking of starting a new one  
Shoot me stuff from w/e fandom you want and if I'm in it I'll check it out  
[idk if people do this stuff on here but I just felt rude not saying for so long:( sorry]

**Author's Note:**

> first chapter's not quite as long as i was hoping. i need to find some music/playlists to get into the real mood for this because like my own angst can only take me so far  
> i mean  
> it takes me p far but  
> still  
> music  
> gotta find it


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